Correira v. Boston Motor Tours, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 January 1930
• Citation: 270 Mass. 88,169 N.E. 775
• Parties: CORREIRA v. BOSTON MOTOR TOURS, Inc. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

270 Mass. 88

169 N.E. 775

CORREIRA

v.BOSTON MOTOR TOURS, Inc. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Jan. 20, 1930.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Bristol County; R. F. Raymond, Judge.

Separate actions by Mary Correira and by Manuel Correira against the Boston Motor Tours, Inc. Verdicts for plaintiffs, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

F. E. Smith, of Boston, and E. R. McCormick, of Taunton, for plaintiffs.

H. F. Hathaway, of Boston, for defendant.

PIERCE, J.

These are two actions of tort tried together to a jury, one by Mary Correira to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by her while a passenger for hire in a motor omnibus, owned and operated by the defendant as a common carrier of passengers for hire between Boston and Fall River; the other by Manuel Correira for personal injuries sustained by him while a passenger for hire in the same motor omnibus, and also for expenses and consequential damages which resulted to him in consequence of the personal injuries sustained by his wife, Mary Correira. No requests for instructions were made and refused and no exceptions were taken to any part of the charge. No question is raised by the bill of exceptions as respects the due care of the plaintiffs and the negligence of the defendant. The injuries of which the plaintiffs complain arose out of a collision between the motor omnibus and a heavy motortruck. In each case the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the cases come before us on exceptions taken by the defendant to the admission of evidence in the course of the trial.

Shortly stated, the facts disclosed by the bill of exceptions are that the plaintiffs became passengers for hire on the defendant's motor omnibus for Fall River at Boston, on the afternoon of May 25, 1927. The weather was showery. Between Boston and the place of the accident it was good wheeling and the way was passed without incident. The place of the accident was outside the thickly settled part of, and very close to, the northerly side of ‘Tripp's Bridge’ on Somerset Avenue, near the Taunton-Dighton line. The roadway was ‘pretty slippery.’ At the bridge the roadway wrought for travel was approximately twenty feet wide, without sidewalks. The bridge, made of concrete, was seventy-five feet long and twenty-one feet wide. The approach to the bridge from the north was down grade, curving just north of the bridge to the right at an angle of one hundred forty-seven degrees. The approach to the bridge from the south was down grade. The motor omnibus travelled on the left of the middle of the way without lessening its speed of thirty-five miles an hour from a point about three hundred feet north of the bridge to the curve. Meanwhile a big truck loaded with barrels was on the bridge, coming from the south on its own right side of the way. The operator of the motor omnibus set the emergency brake, with the result that the front of the omnibus was turned to the right and the rear swerved to the left and the oncoming truck struck the motorbus on its left side in the rear of the front seats, causing the damage alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiffs.

In describing the collision one of the plaintiffs was permitted to testify, subject to the exception of the defendant, that ‘The bus was skidding.’ The witness then testified without objection that what he meant by ‘skidding’ was ‘that just as he went around that bend there, that as the bus was going around that bend he couldn't go straight because the bend would stop him, and in order to go around that curve he had to cut sharp and when he did the rear end of the bus skidded over.’ There was no reversible error in the receiption of this evidence; or in the refusal to...